December 12, 2009

Can it be another year is already gone? I just can’t believe it! Wow, so much has happened in our world lately. The BIGGEST news is that my awesome husband was ordained last month! He is now a pastor at Northern Hills and I am a pastor’s wife! I am so proud and excited for my man! God has us on such an amazing journey…God’s grace is a beautiful and undeserved mystery. Never in our wildest dreams did we see ourselves here. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that memorable day…Courtesy of Maria Mitchell, Life Clicks Photography (edited by me:)

Another crazy thing is that my Carson turned 1! I can’t believe it!!! He is walking everywhere and getting quite fast. And I’m VERY pleased to share that his first word was “mama”! My first/last son to say “mama” before “dada”. I think he’s working on “no-no”…it sounds like “na-na!” He eats more than Ryan and AJ together and he loves his milk. I still think investing in a milk cow would be a wise thing! Pictures are courtesy of Maria Mitchell, Life Clicks Photography. (Edited by me:)

And finally…my sweet boy, AJ, turns 4 tomorrow! Wow, he is such a blessing. He is just full of love. I have to share a video I found the other day. This was when AJ turned one:) Seriously…how stinkin’ cute is this boy???

June 21, 2009

We’ve had quite the exciting week around the Green household! It began Tuesday when I found out that AJ had taught himself to swing. As long as the swing isn’t too high, he can get on by himself and swing ’til the cows come home.

Then we have Ryan’s 1st Tball game on Friday! That was a BLAST! Ryan smacked one right up the middle and got an RBI. Really every player gets an RBI, but the excitement is still intense! It was surreal watching my “baby” play Tball. Where has 5 years gone?

Ryan's RBI!

Playing 1st base

AJ is ready to hit!

Later that night Carson tried Puffs for the first time. He really didn’t know what to think of them!

As if my head wasn’t spinning enough with ALL my kids have accomplished…Saturday evening, Chris taught Ryan how to ride his bike without training wheels!

One proud daddy!

Chris explaining the rules: Keep your head up and your feet on the pedals!

I had to post pictures from Fossil Rim. This place was crazy cool! It’s about 2 hours south of Dallas. You drive your car through and actually feed the animals by hand! I was a bit nervous at first, but relaxed after the first few. Although, I never did brave feeding the ostrich. The picture we got was the one that bit AJ. The first animal we meet and poor AJ winds up with an ostrich bite. That freaked Ryan out so badly that he sat in the back of the van until the last 1/2 of the drive. He wanted to sit up with us to feed the giraffes. They were our favorite. God’s creations never cease to amaze me!

Here’s the Cheetos Story…

On the way home, the boys were given a little Cheetos snack on the way home. We heard them crunching away. Then I heard less crunching and decided to check it out. AJ is completely passed out with orange fingers and the Cheetos bag right next to him. Almost as if he’s guarding it. He stays like this until we’re about 15 minutes from home. We hear crunching again. Again I check. AJ is half awake and half asleep munching on Cheetos. A few minutes later the crunching stops and he’s asleep again. This happens two more times. It was hysterical! I love my boys!

April 7, 2009

Had I known it was so easy to make a volcano, I would have done it months ago! The boys got a Volcano book for Christmas and in the back there are directions to make a volcano and this weekend I made good on my promise to make a volcano with my boys. So here we are with the play by play…

February 9, 2009

Being a family is such a blessing! I love to see tender moments shared between brothers and making up new games to play together. Daddy and Ryan were giving Carson a bath the other day and I was able to capture this beautiful picture:

Ryan loves his brother so much and is such a wonderful helper!

Tonight we were playing hide-n-go-seek. Which is always fun! Especially when playing with a 3-yr old that hides and then yells, “Here I am!” before you can go seek him. It’s so funny! Then we have Ryan…when Chris and I seek we pretend we don’t know where he is. Which when playing with a 4-yr old, you can actually hear where he hides…doors closing, chairs moving…you know what it’s like if you’ve played with a preschooler. So we say, “Hmmm, I wonder where Ryan is? Is he in the closet? No. Is he under the table? No….” and so it goes. Well, it’s Ryan’s turn to seek. He finishes counting to 20 and skips 16 again :)…he looks right at me (I’m under the table) and says: Hmmm, I wonder where Mommy and Daddy are? Let me stress, that he looked right at me. It was too cute!

So Ryan gets a flashlight out, one of his favorite toys to play with and I get an idea. Daddy and AJ team up and Ryan and I are a team. We play Flashlight Hide-n-go-seek! With all the lights out one team hides and one team seeks. Ony the catch is you can only have the light to go searching for the other team. It may just be my new favorite game. I think it’s Ryan’s too!

January 3, 2009

Chris: Don’t panic, but the house next door is on fire and we need to evacuate.

That’s really all I remember because I was woken out of dead sleep. Chris said, and these are his exact words, that I got my crying on and said, “Oh, is our house is going to burn down?” I, however, remember being disoriented and asking him if I need to grab the scrapbooks, the one thing I’d grab after my family was safe. I was so confused.

I had the baby and he got the other two and we headed to the mom van (that’s what our 4 and 3 yr old call the super sweet ride I drive). Although, there was really no where to go because in our small cul-de-sac there were two fire trucks and two police cars blocking the exit. So we drove to the other side and waited. I fed the baby and the boys watched in pure excitement. We didn’t see any flames, but there was smoke pouring out of the door. Everyone was safe even their cat. It was really cool to see the firefighter hand him over to our relieved neighboor. Two people were sent to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. The captain said it was a small fire that started and was contained in the garage, but we still don’t know what caused it.

There were a total of four firetrucks and three police cars. It was pretty scary being that close to what could have been a huge disaster. Thank goodness for smoke detectors. Make sure your batteries have been swapped out recently. Here are some more pics. They aren’t great because it was cold outside and I didn’t want to mess with finding the correct settings on my camera, but you can see most of it pretty well.

January 1, 2009

I’m so excited about everything that’s going to happen this year. Ryan will be going off to Kindergarten. AJ will hopefully be potty trained. 🙂 Carson will be walking and talking. We will be going on our first official family vacation. I will hopefully be doing more photography. And Chris is looking forward to what’s in store for him at Northern Hills. What an amazing year it’s going to be! And what a great start to all of it when gas is $1.34/gal! Did you ever think we’d see it that low again? I sure didn’t!!!

Many of us make resolutions at this time of year. Lose weight or take better care of our bodies, call home more often, be better parents, take up a new hobby… I’ve never been much of a resolution making type of gal because when I fail (usually within the first week) I feel nothing but guilty. I do, however, reflect over the last year and think and pray about the changes I can make to be more like the woman that God is designing me to be. I think this year I’ll be focusing on using my time better. With 3 boys, working online, and teaching Jazzercise, I think that’ll be key to keeping me on the sane side of life.

I think another “biggy” when it comes to resolutions is spending money more wisely. Which leads me to coupons…I’ve been a HUGE advocate of coupons for about two years now. I started playing the Grocery Game in the summer of ’06 (I think). When I was keeping track, I think that first year I saved over $1000 using coupons. And recently I found another website that helps assist in keeping the grocery bills lower: Coupon Mom. We typically don’t spend over $200 in groceries per month and coupons play a huge part in that. I also shop the quick sale items for meat, milk, and bread. The deep-freeze is my best friend when it comes to stretching that dollar. So just to give you an example of what our shopping bill looks like I’ll tell you what I saved and spent today. This was only average when compared to how I usually do…

Today at King Soopers I spent $35.11 and this is what it bought me:

2 boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes

2 boxes of Life cereal

Jiffy corn muffins

A loaf of whole wheat bread-quick sale rack for $1.50

18 count lg eggs

1 package of turkey brats-quick sale for $1.29

1 package of turkey drumsticks-quick sale for $2.13

1 package of 16 chicken drumsticks-quick sale for $3.91

Dishwasher detergent

2 coffemate creamers

Laundry detergent

Bananas

1 pineapple

1 package of Jumbo hotdogs-terrible for us, I know, but the kids love ’em!

24 count Aleve

Skippy natural PB

2 boxes of mac ‘n cheese

6 individual servings of applesauce-quick sale for $.14/each

I brought my own bags and saved$.25. I also saved $10.80 with my King Soopers card and I saved $8.80 using coupons. So I saved a total of $19.60. Usually I save closer to 50-75% of what I spend. Today it was only 37%, but still not bad!

The biggest thing with coupons (imhp) is that you can’t be brand specific and just because you have a coupon for something does NOT mean you have to use it. When I first started, I pretty much bought everything that was 75% off or more. That included all the c-rap that is good to eat, but maybe not the healthiest of options. I still tend to buy those things every now and again when they are $.50 or less, but I’m much picker than I have been in my earlier days as a couponer. Happy shopping!

Coupons and Salvation a devotional by Chris Green

Recently my wife has gotten into the rather surprisingly in-depth world of couponing. She plans, organizes, and watches weekly for “the list”. It’s really something to see. The art of clipping, comparing, counting, cutting cost, and combining them in a cute little coupon cache is comparable to a crazy artist with his canvas! She redeems these coupons for items at a reduced cost, sometimes even for free! Great for the budget!

As she dives into this endeavor, it made me think of the word redeem. It made me think about how God has chosen to redeem us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word redeem like this: Redeem: -to buy back; -to recover by effort and/ or payment; -make a single payment to discharge; -to save from; -purchase the freedom of; -to save or rescue. Look at the last two definitions in particular. The words freedom, save, and rescue ring loud. We need rescuing from our sin. Like those coupons, we need to be redeemed. The apostle Paul makes this very clear in his letter to the Roman church that this is just what Jesus has done for us. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:22-24 emphasis mine).

The cost to redeem our lives was high. So high, in fact, that the only worthy payment was God sacrificing Himself as Jesus Christ, taking our sin and dying in our place, for us, so that we might be bought back. And in so doing, receiving freedom and forgiveness from the sin that rules our lives. Ephesians 1:7-8 says, “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Christ has redeemed us! You didn’t have a choice when you came into this world. You were born a sinner. But God’s greatness prevails over the dead-end that sin brings us to if we give our lives to Him. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

If you’ve never given your life to Jesus … stopped living for yourself and started living for Him … turned from your way to His way … been redeemed by His blood, then I invite you to do that today. Right now. You just need to talk with the Savior. Maybe you say something like this: God, I know I messed up. I confess my sin to you and I’m sorry that I’ve sinned against you. I believe that you sent your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for me, and that he was resurrected to sit at your right hand. I turn from my sin to you, Lord. Amen.

So, as you look at the ads in the paper or stroll down the grocery aisle and see those coupons, think about redemption. When you redeem that coupon, remember that Jesus redeemed you from an eternity of separation from Him and don’t wait another day to share this news of salvation with others. Amen.

December 28, 2008

I can’t believe Christmas has come and gone. Once Carson was born, life really started to fly by. Our Christmas had a fun start with everyone in the house waking up within minutes of each other. Chris woke to tell me that Carson wasn’t awake for his early feeding and the boys were still in bed. This was at 6:30, usually Carson eats at 5:30 and the boys are awake by 6:15. Seconds after we woke up, the boys came downstairs. And within minutes of hearing Ryan and AJ, Carson started to stir. I thought it was a cute way to start Christmas.

While I fed Carson, the boys were chomping at the bit to get Christmas started. I, of course, wanted to have my hands free to take pictures so we need to stall and distract. I suggested Chris read the Christmas story from Luke. He read from the bible using kid friendly language and the boys were really attentive.

December 24, 2008

I’ve always had big boys. Ryan was born at 8 pounds, AJ 8.5 pounds, and Carson was the winner at a whopping 8 pounds 9 ounces. It seems that my boys never were that newborn size for too long, they just started gaining weight and stayed at the top of the 90% until they hit 3 and then the fell closer to the 60% for weight. I remember for AJ’s 2 week appointment he had gained so much weight that the doctor asked me what I was feeding him. I told him I was just nursing and he replied with an answer that still makes me laugh and feel a bit embarrassed: Good milk, Mom.

So we had Carson’s 2 week appointment today, and I think he’ll fit right in to our family of future eat-us-out-of-house-and-home-boys. So at two weeks babies are ideally back to their birth weight…Carson was that plus 1 lb and 2 oz for a total of 9 lbs 11 oz. He’s also already grown 1.5 inches! What a porker! I’m not sure who he takes after more, as Daddy and I are both quite the eaters ourselves.

And…

We had my friend from Life Clicks Photography come on Monday to take some family pictures of our beautiful new addition. She did a great job and I thought I’d share. Enjoy! And Merry Christmas!